About.com Rating

Lance Daly’s Kisses is a short and beautiful movie. And I loved it. It made me cry.

Kylie (Kelly O'Neill) and Dylan (Shane Curry) are unhappy eleven-year-olds, next door neighbors in a shabby suburb outside of Dublin. One of many children, Kylie is forever forced to take care of the baby, plied by her mother to give her uncle Morris unwelcome kisses. Whereas Dylan is flat out hit by his abusive father.

They are not happy, these beautiful children. They are not exactly friends, either, though Kylie informs Dylan early in the film that yes, despite his lack of ambition (or apparent interest) that she will marry him.

Kisses is shot in black and white and also subtitled, because the Irish accents are so thick. I learned many new words, especially through the dialogue of the marvelous, fearless, indefatigable Kylie -- kip, for instance, means home. A series of unfortunate events sends the two racing towards Dublin on Christmas Eve (or more accurately, slowly sailing, stowaways on boat in a canal).

The kids experience moments of wonder, buying wheelies (sneakers that function as roller skates) in a shopping mall, and also horror. Strange men in alleys have insidious designs on pre-adolescent girls. They also meet Bob Dylan in an alleyway. He gives them a beer. Once in Dublin, the black and white slowly, almost organically blossoms into color. The soundtrack -- a gorgeous lilting score and also songs by Bob Dylan -- lifts the already moving story.

Nearly anything that can happen to Kylie and Dylan does. Implausible, maybe, but this is Lance Daly’s movie and I applaud him for packing his story full. He also does a wonderful job in the casting. Unknowns O’Neill and Curry were both discovered through a lengthy casting process. O’Neil can pack a whopper of a curse into a sentence and then end it with a heartbreaking smile. The more taciturn Curry has the aura of a young River Phoenix.

I worried about Kylie and Dylan: where they would sleep, what harm would befall them, could they protect each other, remain unscathed? Daly understood his audience’s inevitable concern; he takes just the right amount of care.

Kisses (2008)

Starring: Stephen Rea, Kelly O'Neill, Shane Curry, Neli Conroy, Paul Roe
Directed by: Lance Daly
Produced by: Les Kelly, Peter Garde, Lance Daly
Running Time: 1 hr. 16 min.
Distributors: Oscilloscope Pictures
Release Date: July 19, 2010 (limited)